It seems I need help setting mGBA up

Questions
1

So. I’ve been using the VBA-M emulator since forever. And not just any version, it probably is older than my grandma. Remember it having big red letters at the bottom of the screen when saving states? That’s the one I have! I’m pretty sure it belongs in a museum, but since it always worked perfectly, and still works perfectly, I never saw the need to update. I’m the kind of guy with a “don’t fix what isn’t broken” philosophy.

BUT

I know everyone and their mom uses mGBA and gets alarmed when I don’t use it. So I downloaded it. Everything looks good EXCEPT the emulator stutters every 1 minute or so for no reason. Like a little jerk then continue that is… annoying as all ends. And my PC is far from being THAT bad. It can run stuff like BG3 with no issues, to name one of the latest games I run here.

So what’s the issue? I have touched video, renderings, and the like, but the issue persists and I don’t know if it’s mGBA hating NVIDIA or Intel, or if I’m missing something really obvious (which may be the case. I’m unafraid to look like a clown as long as I get it to run smoothly).

Also, when capturing mGBA with OBS, the toolbar gets captured as well lol I know it’s easy to crop it out and call it a day (already did), but… is there an option to ignore that automatically?

Thanks in advance and have a great day!

2

Just use the emulator you want. You shouldn’t let elitists police the way you play games.

4 Likes
3

I’d like to know the answer as well because the weird microstutters are the same reasons stopping me from using it.

4

Don’t worry, that I know. Problem is certain romhacks that supposedly works better with it. The thing is it can’t run FE7 properly here, yet lots say “it’s better” and makes you wonder wtf.

5

It’s not graphics-related. mGBA also has a ton of tiny Qt and audio engine settings that tend to be finnicky, so start with those. Try turning off every “optional” tickbox.

Also I find that running programs off a hard drive can cause stuttering, especially if said hard drive is dying. Yes, even something as lightweight as mGBA.

Wrt people using mGBA, it’s just more accurate so a lot of hack devs use it as best practice, otherwise there’s a strong possibility their hack won’t work on real hardware.